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Story Time

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2020

Stories (241)
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241 Stories

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Potato Salad

Submitted to Contest #138

They didn’t even bring potato salad. A picnic with no potato salad. I mean, what is the point, Grace? I ask you-- What is the point? I know, I know-- Take what you can get. When you’re an ant-- Mark says we’re bugs, but I disagree. There is a difference between an ant and a bug, and if you’ve ever spent time with a ladybug, you understand the difference. The point is, we take what we can get. That being said, there are certain expectations you have when you’re at a picnic. Nobody tries anymore. That’s the difficulty...

44 likes 30 comments 30
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The Boy in the Pink Tuxedo

Winner of Contest #137 🏆

I met the love of my life at someone else’s prom.He wasn’t my date.My date was a lovely young woman whose name I can’t remember. What I do remember is that her dress was blue the way Southern debutantes in movies always wear blue dresses. At least from the movies I’ve seen. It was blue, but not puffy, and I was grateful for that. I’m resistant to puffy. Puffy and poofy. I can’t tolerate either.We attended her senior prom together, because her boyfriend had just broken up with her the week before and she was heartbroken. The big night was a w...

328 likes 249 comments 249
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On the Mound

Submitted to Contest #136

Not one strike. That’s tough. Even one and you could walk out of here with your head held high. But the kind of failure you experienced today is a real chin-dropper. Can’t argue with that. Here’s a hot dog. Extra relish. I would judge you, but we both know an enjoyment of relish indicates sociopathic tendencies. You can be nice to puppies all you want, but slathering relish on a perfectly good wiener means I’ll probably have to have a therapist examine you before you reach adulthood just to make sure you don’t wind up stacking bodies...

28 likes 19 comments 19
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Snail Man

Submitted to Contest #135

Picture it. A shadowy figure moves through an alleyway. Past a tabby cat. Around a dumpster filled with refuse. Dancing over muddy puddles that reflect neon signs advertising coming attractions. A spy movie. Perhaps a prestige picture. The mysterious and nefarious being makes his way up to a couple waiting with their young child for a taxi to whisk them back to suburbia. Back to a pleasant house in a pleasant neighborhood where there are no alleyways or honking horns or men who know nothing but darkness in their hearts. The kind of dar...

44 likes 38 comments 38
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The Hovering Age

Winner of Contest #134 🏆

She’ll come down when she’s ready. My mother used to say when you reach the hovering age, it’s important to take your time. Don’t feel as though you need to keep yourself on the ground if your body wants to do something else. I hit the hovering age at thirteen. The first time I slammed the door in my father’s face, I looked down, and I was three inches off the ground. Always felt useless to me. Not to be able to fly--just hover. So I stopped right away. I didn’t have any interest in being an impractical person. My first boyfriend told me...

227 likes 136 comments 136
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A House and a Heart and a Ghost and a Box

Submitted to Contest #133

I have a house. There’s a box. Would you like-- Would you like to see-- I saw. I saw a ghost. I saw a ghost of a heart in the box. The parade came through and I chiseled a statue of the ghost. The ghost and not the ghost of the heart. Up to the steps came the parade. Turrah, turrah--tangle me up. That’s how it sounded. My ears play tricks on me, but never my mind. Never my eyes. I can see the fire trying to lick up the heart-shaped box and it won’t. It can’t because it doesn’t know the combination. Everything ...

16 likes 8 comments 8
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A Prayer for the Strong

Submitted to Contest #132

Are you there, God? It’s me. I’d like to know If there’s a prayer For the strong? You see, I’m strong. I know I’m strong Because all day I go from house to house And I sit at tables And people tell me What a wonderful person My husband was And they offer me coffee Good coffee Gourmet The kind you get As part of a subscription service Where every month It’s Peru or Argentina And when you make it The whole house fills up With that potent roasted smell That makes you feel Taken care of These people In these houses They take care of me...

23 likes 11 comments 11
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Off Season Girls

Submitted to Contest #131

We borrowed the car to see a movie with subtitles. It was playing one town over. Something in French. Something with a beautiful man in a top hat singing to a woman. A married woman. A married woman with a gorgeous name who we all wanted to murder because the man in the top hat loved her instead of us. We bought popcorn and smuggled in candy. We filled up a cup with half Coke, half Diet Coke. We pretended we were annoyed when the boys behind us heckled the film, but midway through, it was clear that the movie was terrible and the jokes wer...

30 likes 9 comments 9
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Cage the Storm

Submitted to Contest #130

I liked it better when we were on the bookcase. The titles were all lined up in front of us and we could read them aloud to each other every night. We’d come up with stories and attach them to the titles. The stories would produce other stories with new titles. It became difficult to tell which story sprung from the child of which imagination and how it connected to one of the spines on the shelf. Remember when we lived in that tchotchke shop in the Bahamas? We were just one bottle amongst so many other bottles. The ships were all pain...

28 likes 8 comments 8
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Beautiful, What's Your Hurry?

Submitted to Contest #129

If you open the door, the snow is six feet high.Seven. Twelve.It’s high enough.Go back in and make some popcorn.Ask the man on the bright red sofa what he’d like.Would he like a drink?Could you make him a drink?He hasn’t spoken in an hour.You were having a perfectly fine conversation and then he just--Stopped.Stopped talking.If you engage him in conversation, he’ll ask you about the scar on your cheek. The scar on your cheek is shaped like the letter ‘S.’ Like a serpent. It’s head poised. It’s body lean. It’s hunger undeniable. It wraps itse...

27 likes 8 comments 8
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A Disturbance on the Austrian Line

Submitted to Contest #128

Frankly, Alma, I find the entire affair unacceptable. Yes, please, more tea, but less sugar this time. It’s bad enough I’ve been up half the night. I don’t need to be bouncing off the cheap paneled walls of this ghastly locomotive. I told you we should have looked into an ocean liner for our restive month instead of roughing it aboard the Austrian Line. Now look where we are. Stopped in the middle of who-knows-where while some diminutive detective tries to solve the murder of a man nobody seems to like very much at all. I, for one, belie...

32 likes 16 comments 16
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Drift

Submitted to Contest #127

There’s a spot of blood on the dog’s right ear. Scout, Sheila’s pride and joy, is so unnerved by her erratic driving that his little body flits about only long enough for her to notice the red dot in her rear view mirror, but not long enough for her to snatch him up and examine where the blood could be coming from or whether or not it belongs to her. Her hand is still bandaged and gripping the steering wheel tightly brings about a slow throb that’s exacerbating her already heavy breathing. She tells herself that if anything happens to her,...

28 likes 11 comments 11
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A Very Important Date

Submitted to Contest #125

Did I make it?  Did I-- Oh, sorry. Almost got my tail caught in the door there. You know, it’s a small tail, but it still manages to-- Did I make it in time? I see you’re counting the money in the cash register, but when I checked online it said you close at ten and I believe it’s-- Well, when last I looked at my watch, right as I was entering your fine establishment, I saw that it was sixty seconds until ten and it surely did not take me a minute to enter what I would argue is a rather large doorway, and so I-- Goodness, I ...

18 likes 13 comments 13
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Smooth Sailing

Submitted to Contest #124

…And in regards to the sea monster, I would like to congratulate Erasmus on losing but one leg rather than both as he battled the mighty foe. Many a man has lost several appendages fighting such creatures, but Erasmus managed to keep nearly all of us, and for that, we are most proud of him. My, doesn’t his new peg look sharp! Whittled to perfection by Antonio, to whom we are most grateful. Applause all around. Well, that about covers the old business of the day. Dinner tonight will be a light grog with a side of sea monster stew. Perhaps s...

25 likes 11 comments 11
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While Dressed As An Owl

Submitted to Contest #123

“Well, that was dramatic,” his father said. Tuesday’s meant something from the Katherine Hepburn canon, and this time, it was On Golden Pond. When Walter was done with his performance, his father could only muster that one bit of feedback and then he went back to his copy of The Atlantic. His mother sighed and asked him to go get ready for bed. It was past eleven, after all, and he had school the next day. If there was one thing Walter could do, it was memorize things other people had said. Not quotes so much, but dialogue. Movies. Tel...

36 likes 29 comments 29
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